This is the tone I don't like. People who don't like the tipping habit just want people to be paid properly and see tipping as at best perpetuating a patronising system and at worse something altogether more dodgy

Maybe they are horrible, and maybe they do. A bonus from your company is not the same as a tip from your customer.

Again, the moral high ground argument doesn't wash. Better to be kind and generous to a charity, or prioritised according to need - rather direct your surplus funds at whoever puts himself in front of you holding his hand out.

In fact, by tipping, you are helping the "horrible" CEOs employ people at low wages - generating more profits and bonuses for themselves.

So you think Costa Rica has no labor laws? Of course they do. In some way, stricter than some US laws. However, the cost of living is much lower.

The problem is you're thinking of things from a US perspective. I hate to tell you, but the world is a mighty big place. Labor costs have a way of getting multiplied once you export the items.

If someone chooses to live in NYC, then they should have the means to support their family. A business is obligated to pay the national or state minimum wage. Any other increase is up to the business owner and the prevalent market forces.

If you have to pay $100 a month to the local mafia so your car isn't harmed, is that okay? Any time you are intimidated or pressured to give money, it's certainly not a gratuity. I tip for services provided that the service was acceptable or better, and that there is no thuggery involved.

Some elitists on here seem to think that being a skycab is the same thing as begging or paying off the mafia. Last time I checked SKYCABS PROVIDE A SERVICE. Does the Mob or the stinky guy begging on the side of the street provide any service for the fee????

protection and clean windows, respectively.

ok i will answer your question of
the point most people here are making is that a fee is already being paid. why would it be necessary to add a tip?

Maybe the airlines should go to a non-tipping situation with the skycabs. We know that will never happen because they are too cheap to pay the skycabs any type of wage that will keep them there.

Most of the skycabs I talk to are hard working folk who just want to take care of their families just like you and me. They NEED TIPS TO DO THAT. You want to use their service then please give them something worthwhile as a tip. The standard fee for tipping at a restaurant is 15-20% of the bill. I am sure skycabs have their own "standard" which really isn't published and I am sure its more than 1 dollar a bag.

Way off topic. Sorry

Let's get this straight for one minute:

1. You're sure there is a standard.
2. It "really isn't published"
3. You're "sure it's more than 1 dollar a bag"

Umm, ok...

The cost of living in Costa Rica is much less??? Ok lets do the math-the banana hauler gets $1.00 an hour and works 12 hours per day say 6 days a week x 52 weeks (no vacation or time off) =$3,744 a year pre tax. IT must be VERY cheap.

As for tips and bonuses not being the same....If I have a job on wall street and get paid a salary of $400K shouldnt that be enough compensation? Why should they get $10M bonuses too.
A tip is recognition of a job well done--a bonus should be the tied to performance. The rich get richer the poor get poorer.

I don't believe this is the case in most Skycap jobs. I recall that when they went to the airline fees, NPR did a story, and said that when they went to the fee system, they increased the wages of the Skycap jobs to $8 or more per hour. In fact, here's a online listing, showing that the SALARY of Skycaps is $1400-2700 a month, and that's not including tips.

http://www.avjobs.com/careers-directory/skycap.asp

Of course, even in the worst cases the minimum they make is, minimum wage, not $2.22 an hour.

And the most important question is: Do you tip the person inside at the counter? I'd bet that they get paid at a $8-$12 an hour range. They handle your bags. In fact, in general they do much more than the guy at the curb.

Whatever one thinks of the skycaps, this clearly should be set up as a fee system. Tipping is a useful mechanism only where there is a wide range of service quality possible. Then, the consumer can pay more for superior service and less for inferior service.

What range of service possibility is there with skycaps?! They're checking your bags! Do you tip based on the wideness of their smile? The pleasantness of their small talk?

Put up a fee schedule based on usage. No more tips.

I've not been a big user of skycaps, but I think the airlines have created a sticky situation here.

Without a service fee per bag, I would certainly have no issues tipping, because there was (in my mind) an implication that the airline was just providing the body, which (again, in my mind) implies that the person was working on the 'tipping scale' of lesser wages.

Once the airline starts providing the body AND charging for the service provided, I see that as a non-tipped position. At that point, to me, the airline should be paying the skycaps as they are now the vehicle through which the airline is collecting a not-so-trivial two bucks a bag.

I appreciate the plight of the skycaps, who are really the ones getting squeezed out, but, on the other hand, my role in life is not to be a charity. (I know that sounds harsh, and I don't mean it to be, but it's true).

Steve

I haven't used a skycap in years. I simply don't see the value in the service. Now, it might be because we get our shorter elite lines when we check bags, but still. When I did use them, I tipped appropriately, as that's what was expected.

What gets me are the services during travel that you cannot avoid, but are expected to tip for. The idea of tipping doormen for hailing cabs is ridiculous to me. I don't need this guy to hail a cab for me, the hotel needs him to manage traffic in front of the building. Great, let them pay for that. I don't need anyone to carry my bag the 3 feet from the curb to the trunk either.

That is one case where I will use the service because I can't avoid it, but I will not tip.

I think I hate that one more than any other. There is no service of any value there at all. I usually walk half a block and hail the cab myself.